Tel Aviv Restaurant Breaks Down Boundaries Between Eating Out and at Home

(JNi.media) Bringing your own sandwich to a restaurant would appear as the height of chutzpah, but not any more—at least not at Lunchbox, a new dining initiative at 19 Lilienblum Street, near Rothschild Blvd. in Tel Aviv, that encourages patrons to bring their own food from home to the restaurant and order only the extras they want.

According to Chen Emor, a Lunchbox co-owner, the initiative is part of the conception of “custom made meal,” where every diner picks his or her meal out of the elements on hand. Diners in restaurants are often seduced into ordering more portions than they actually need to satiate their hunger, and they end up overeating, spending more moneythan they should have, and wasting food. “Our main audience is comprised of working people who come to eat on a daily basis,” Emor says, “and we want to help them conduct themselves properly both nutritionally and economically.”

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Diners who bring their food in from outside can complete the meal with protein, carbs, fresh vegetable salad or dessert as they see fit. Each diner constructs a meal that fits their exact requirements, and don’t cause them to “explode” from too much food. They don’t walk out heavy and sleepy, and can return to work or continue to their next meeting.

Lunchbox prepares its dishes in collaboration with a nutritionist, to create the right balance between vegetables, measured carbohydrates, and quality protein, without preservatives and virtually free of Frying. The meals are served ​to go, packaged with a label of their nutritional values, or to patrons sitting down at the tables.